Book reviews

In Search of the San Paul Weinberg, 1997, In Search of the San. Text and Photographs by Paul Weinberg. Johannesburg: The Porcupine Press. 80pp. Notes on Pronunciation. “Introduction” by Riaan de Villiers.

Bush for the Bushman Perrott, John. Bush for the Bushman. Need “The Gods Must Be Crazy” Kalahari People Die? Greenville, PA.: Beaver Pond. 1992. Photographs.

Healing Makes our Hearts Happy Richard Katz, Megan Biesele, Verna St. Denis, Healing Makes our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Transformation among the Kalahari Ju/'hoansi. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1997. 214 pp. US$29.95

Africa on Film Kenneth M. Cameron. Africa on Film: Beyond Black and White. New York: Continuum, 1994. 240 pp., photos, index, filmography, bibliography. ISBN: 0–8264–0658–0.

America's Dark Images of Africa In Darkest Hollywood: Cinema and Apartheid. Produced by Peter Davis and Daniel Riesenfeld. 1994. Two VHS videotapes, each 55 minutes. Distributed by Villon Films, 77 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5Y 2K7, Canada.

Davis, Peter. In Darkest Hollywood: Exploring the Jungles of Cinema's South Africa. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1996. 190 pp., illus., paperback.     

Transcultural Cinema

Transcultural Cinema. David MacDougall. Edited and with an Introduction by Lucien Taylor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.318.     

Hollywood and the Travelogue

Although documentary films, in formats such as the travelogue-expedition film, are rarely considered as a basis for insight into the Hollywood cinema, the early 1930s provide one historical period during which travelogues produced by independent filmmakers achieved such public popularity that the Hollywood studios were forced to respond. Studios produced some feature-length documentaries themselves, began distributing others, and generated "hybrid" films, such as M-G-M's Trader Horn [1931], that demonstrate a surprising willingness to give up the priority of narrative for the advantage of providing audiences with digressive documentary interludes devoted to the spectacle of exotic cultures, landscapes and wildlife.     

Hollywood Icons, Local Demons

Hollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian Popular Paintings by Mark Anthony. Widener Art Gallery, Trinity College, Hartford, CT: January 31-March 31, 2000 (review venue); Kansas City Gallery of Art, University of Missouri, Kansas City, September 8-October 27, 2000; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, July 14-September 25, 2001; Lowe Art Center, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY: December 10-January 25, 2002 (pending funding).
Hollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian Popular Paintings by Mark Anthony. Michelle Gilbert. Hartford, CT. Trinity College, 2000.72 pp.     

In the Shadow of Hollywood Orientalism: Authentic East Indian Dancing

Jerome Mintz Retrospective: 1968–1986 The Shoemaker. 1978, black‐and‐white, 34 minutes. Pepe's Family. 1978, black‐and‐white, 41 minutes. Perico the Bowlmaker. 1978, black‐and‐white, 45 minutes. The Shepherd's Family. 1978, black‐and‐white, 22 minutes. All produced, directed, and edited by Jerome Mintz; Camera and Sound: Jerome Mintz; Narration: Russ Salmon and Charles Vitaliano. All in Spanish with English voice‐over. 16mm and ½″ VHS video. Distributor: Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02172, USA, (617–926–9519).

Carnaval de Pueblo. 1987, color, 58 minutes. Produced, directed, and edited by Jerome Mintz; Camera: Jerome Mintz; Assistant Camera and Sound: Ron Hess; Assistant Editors: Michael Frisino, Carla Mintz, Maria Sendra, and Susan Schwibs; Subtitles: Elaina Frabaschi. 16 mm and ½” VHS video. Distributor: Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02172, USA, (617–926–9519).

Romeria: Day of the Virgin. 1986, color, 54 minutes. Produced, directed, and edited by Jerome Mintz; Camera: Jerome Mintz; Sound: Aaron Mintz; Assistant editors: Carla Mintz and Michael Frisino. 16 mm and ½″ VHS video.

An Interview with Jerome Mintz Jerome Mintz is a professor of anthropology at Indiana University, the department from which he received his Ph.D. in 1961. His main areas of interest include ethnographic film, myth and folklore, peasant society, folk religion, revitalization movements, anarchism, and Hasidism. He has conducted extensive field work in Spain as well as with Hasidic Jews in New York. While in the field in Spain, Mintz produced a large body of 16mm film footage and taped interviews between 1968 and 1971. These materials were eventually edited to produce four black‐and‐white films focusing on individuals, their families, and social networks. More recently Mintz has produced two films, Romeria: Day of The Virgin, and Carnaval de Pueblo, which have received widespread attention over the past two years. These films are all discussed in the accompanying review.

My Town—Mio Paese Produced and directed by Katherine Gulla; Camera: In Italy, Peter Sturken, in Massachusetts, Brian Dowley and Frank Lane; Sound: In Italy, Vladimir Lozinski, in Massachusetts, Francis X. Coakley, Nancy Cohen, Margo Garrison, and Dan Jones; Editor: Dan McCabe. Original languages English and Italian, English narration, English subtitles. 1986, color, 26 minutes, ½”, ¾” video. Price: Sale: $330; Rental: $35. Distributor: University of California Extension Media Center, 2176 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA, (415–642–0460).

Ave Maria: The Story of the Fisherman's Feast Produced and directed by Beth Harrington; Camera: Nancy Moloney, Kathy Campbell, Dave Zeland, and Nick Wakefield, 1986, color, 24 minutes, ½″, ¾” video. Price: Sale: $320; Rental: $33. Distributor: University of California Extension Media Center, 2176 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA, (415–642–0460).

Sophia and Her People: Eventful Lives Produced by Peter Loizos with the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation; Directed and edited by Peter Loizos; Camera: Andros Theodora. Original language Cypriot Greek with English subtitles. 1985, color and black‐and‐white, 34 minutes, ½”, ¾” NTSC, PAL video. Distributor: Peter Loizos, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, U.K.

Warriors and Maidens: Gender Relations in a Cretan Mountain Village A film by Barry Machin. 1988, color, 51 minutes, ½″ NTSC and PAL video. Sale Price: $310. Original language Greek with English narration and subtitles. Photocopy of monograph is available for $100. Distributor: Meriwa Films, 43 Meriwa Street, Perth 6009, West Australia.

Bride Market of Imilchil Produced and directed by Christian Pierce and Steffen Pierce. Camera: Christian Pierce and Steffen Pierce; Sound: Daniel Hartnett; Editors: Tom Barber, Tom Shaker, Steven Rausch; Production Coordinator: Rebecca Willis; Translator: Mohammed Rdad. 1988, color, 58 minutes, ½” and ¾” video. Distributor: Pierce Productions, 56 Ridgemont Street, Allston, MA 02134, USA, (617–254–0821).

The Kayapó “The Kayapó” (Granada Television's Disappearing World Series). Produced and directed by Michael Beckham. Executive Producer: Rod Caird; Camera: Mike Blakeley; Sound: David Woods; Editor: Paul Griffiths‐Davies; Anthropologist: Terence Turner; Research: Peter Connors; Film Dubbing: John Whitworth; Graphic Design: Valerie Pye. 1987, color, 52 minutes, 35mm. Distributor: Granada Television of England, 36 Golden Square, London W1R 4AH, UK and 1221 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 3468, New York, NY 10020, USA. “The Golden Curse of the Kayapó.” National Geographic Explorer Series. 1988. “Without Borders”. Segment on the Kayapó Indians of Brazil. Turner Broadcasting Systems. 1988. “Os Kayapós Descobrem as Barragens”. Produced and directed by Centro Ecumenico de Documentação (CEDI) and the Kayapó of Gorotire. Camera: Paiakan Kayapó. 1988, color, 120 minutes, ½″ video. Portuguese and Kayapó. Distributor: CEDI, São Paulo, S.P., Brazil.

Consider Anything, Only Don't Cry Produced, directed, and edited by Helen De Michiel; Sound: Vernon E. Norwood. 1987, 22:05 minutes, color, ½” video. Distributor: Intermedia Arts, 425 Ontario Street, SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414, USA, (612–627–4444).

A Song of Air Written, directed, and edited by Merilee Bennett; Production assistance: Australian Film Commission. 1987, 28 minutes, color, black‐and‐white, ½″ NTSC video, narration in English. Distributor: Australian Film Commission, 9229 W. Sunset Boulevard, #6515, Beverly Hills, CA, USA, (213–275–7074).

Marriage, migration and money: Mira Nair's cinema of displacement

So Far from India Produced and Directed by Mira Nair. Camera: Mitch Epstein. Sound: Alexander Griswold. Editor: Ann Schaetzel. 16mm, ½″ video. English subtitles. Distributed by Filmmaker's Library, 124 E. 40th Street, New York, NY 10016, USA, (212–808–4980). Film Price: Sale $750; Rental $75. Video Price: Sale $400.

India Cabaret Produced and Directed by Mira Nair. Camera: Mitch Epstein. Sound: Alexander Griswold. Editing: Barry Alexander Brown. 1985.16mm, ½” video, color, 60 minutes. English subtitles. Distributed by Filmmaker's Library, 124 E. 40th Street, New York, NY 10016, USA, (212–808–4980). Film Price: Sale $850; rental $85. Video Price: Sale $500.

Salaam Bombay! Produced and Directed by Mira Nair. Camera: S. Sissel. Editing: Barry Alexander Brown. Story: Mira Nair and Soom Taraporevala. Screenplay: Soom Taraporevala. 1988, 16mm, 35mm, color, 90 minutes. Distributed by Cinecom, Inc., New York.     

The Authoring of Observational Cinema: Conversations with Colin Young

Based on a series of conversations with Colin Young that have taken place over more than thirty years, this article explores how a certain set of practical and institutional circumstances, in combination with a series of philosophical and aesthetic ideas about the nature of cinema, first led to the emergence over the late 1960s and early 1970s of the approach to ethnographic filmmaking that would become known as “Observational Cinema.” Although it was those whom Colin Young trained, inspired or simply influenced who worked out the practical filmmaking applications of his ideas, it was he who initially formulated the foundational concepts underpinning this approach to ethnographic filmmaking. As such, although he has been a “filmmaker-maker” rather than a filmmaker himself, Colin Young has a rightful claim to be considered, in the sense defined by Roland Barthes, as the original “author” of Observational Cinema.     

American Anthropology in the Middle Decades: A View from Hollywood

North American anthropology had an earlier interest in studies of the United States and in critical approaches than is often recognized. Such interests were pursued before World War II but were set aside during the war and in anthropology's postwar expansion. This perspective on anthropological history was inspired by the work of Hortense Powdermaker, specifically the disjunction between her 1930s research in segregated Mississippi and her pioneering study of Hollywood in the late 1940s. Reexamining that study highlights the theoretical framework that led to omissions in her account of Hollywood, while her explanation of movie content invites a more diachronic approach. Parallels between the history of the movies and that of cultural anthropology from the 1930s through the 1960s suggest how both were shaped by the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.     

The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle; Experimental Ethnography: The Work of Film in the Age of Video

The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Fatimah Tobing Rony. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. 300 pp.
Experimental Ethnography: The Work of Film in the Age of Video. Catherine Russell. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.391 pp.     

Asthma episodes: stigma, children, and Hollywood films

Asthma has been systematically stigmatized in Hollywood feature films, including films seen by children. Through content analysis of 66 movies containing one or more scenes showing asthma, and through informant interviews with a dozen U.S. children about representative scenes, the study explores how stigmatizing portrayals are interpreted, accepted, or resisted. Children suffering from asthma actively counterargued with incriminating excerpts, but in some respects their healthy friends were less critical. Overall, children viewed stigmatizing scenes in terms of the social interaction and the social ethics entailed. They did not scrutinize the characters for damaged selfhood, per se, but dwelled on the social processes out of which stigma is erected.     

The Lighter Side of Grief: Loss in Contemporary American Cinema

This article focuses on the current trend towards the combination of grief and humor in American cinema. These representations reflect a society built upon capitalism, competitiveness, and success. But nowadays the American culture seeks to cope with loss of direction and identity. Psychology, sociology and film studies expose these filmic depictions as a social representation of a generation in American social structure rather than as narratives of grief. The question remains, why now? Why at this particular point in history is Hollywood accepting of such humorous films in place of many of the more seriously dramatic works?     

In the Company of Diamonds: De Beers, Kleinzee, and the Control of a Town

In the Company of Diamonds: De Beers, Kleinzee, and the Control of. Town. Peter Carstens. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001. 258 pp.     

"You Have to Be Your Own Doctor": Sociocultural Influences on Alternative Therapy Use among Gay Men with AIDS in West Hollywood

This article considers the use of alternative therapies by gay men with AIDS in West Hollywood, California. In all, 89 different alternative therapies for HIV and AIDS treatment were uncovered during the course of the study. In addition to the high number of alternative therapies, a majority of the men in the study (69.2 percent) were currently using some type of alternative treatment. Sociocultural influences on the use of alternative therapies are explored, including AIDS activism. Because most of the men (92 percent) also use Western medicine as well, the interface of these two types of treatments is also explored, [alternative therapies, AIDS, gay men]     

The Body in the Archives: A Review of Bontoc Eulogy.

The Body in the Archives:. Review of Bontoc Eulogy. 1996. 60 minutes, black and white. video by Marlon Fuentes. For more information, contact Cinema Guild, 1687 Broadway, Suite 506, New York, NY 10019.     

Affective Video Retrieval: Violence Detection in Hollywood Movies by Large-Scale Segmental Feature Extraction

Without doubt general video and sound, as found in large multimedia archives, carry emotional information. Thus, audio and video retrieval by certain emotional categories or dimensions could play a central role for tomorrow''s intelligent systems, enabling search for movies with a particular mood, computer aided scene and sound design in order to elicit certain emotions in the audience, etc. Yet, the lion''s share of research in affective computing is exclusively focusing on signals conveyed by humans, such as affective speech. Uniting the fields of multimedia retrieval and affective computing is believed to lend to a multiplicity of interesting retrieval applications, and at the same time to benefit affective computing research, by moving its methodology “out of the lab” to real-world, diverse data. In this contribution, we address the problem of finding “disturbing” scenes in movies, a scenario that is highly relevant for computer-aided parental guidance. We apply large-scale segmental feature extraction combined with audio-visual classification to the particular task of detecting violence. Our system performs fully data-driven analysis including automatic segmentation. We evaluate the system in terms of mean average precision (MAP) on the official data set of the MediaEval 2012 evaluation campaign''s Affect Task, which consists of 18 original Hollywood movies, achieving up to .398 MAP on unseen test data in full realism. An in-depth analysis of the worth of individual features with respect to the target class and the system errors is carried out and reveals the importance of peak-related audio feature extraction and low-level histogram-based video analysis.     

Ayala, F.J., Fitch, W.M. and Clegg, M.T. Variation and evolution in plants and microorganisms: toward a new synthesis 50 years after Stebbins

In January 2000, an impressive cohort of evolutionary biologistsconvened in Irvine, California, to celebrate the 50th anniversaryof the publication of G. Ledyard Stebbins’ Variation andevolution in plants. The brief introductory appreciation ofStebbins by Peter Raven describes Variation as ‘the mostimportant book on plant evolution of the 20th century’(p. 5). This strongly worded claim is not entirely without justification.Among the ‘New Synthesists’, Stebbins achieved forbotanists what Theodosius Dobzhansky (later to be a colleagueof Stebbins at UC Davis) had previously achieved for geneticists,Ernst Mayr for zoologists and G. G. Simpson for palaeontologists.Admittedly, the     

Comic woman,victim woman: Pushing gender and genre boundaries in popular Hindi Cinema

“Women's film” in Hollywood is associated both with the genre of melodrama, the “weepie”, and with female spectatorship. In the Indian context of popular Hindi cinema, first, genre analysis itself is a questionable line of inquiry since several genres, the melodrama, musical, gangster, or mystery, combine in a single film, known locally as the masala (spicy) film; and second, films are scarcely divided by a gendered viewership. Yet I identify “women's films” as a distinct category in Hindi cinema, emerging around the ‘70s. These women's films typically center on female protagonists, dramatize their victimization and vindication; by the ‘80s under a range of influences these films mutated into rape‐revenge narratives.

However, another strain emerged within the ‘70s’ “women's film,” which drew on cinema's rich visual iconographic tradition of the sight gag, promulgating the comedic/tomboy heroine figure. It favored laughing and mocking patriarchal structures rather than surrendering to them in tears. Focusing on Ramesh Sippy's Sita aur Gita [1972] emblematic of this trend I explore theoretical concerns about associating genres with gender. In keeping with recent poststructuralist theories about gender and media ‘consumption I show how the film destabilized clear‐cut gender identification and stood for a promising trend that was sadly undercut. Thus, while genre might still be a useful analytical tool for Hindi cinema, defining women's film as female‐centered narratives is a viable category as long as we appreciate the instability in gendered viewer identification.     

Walker Evans: Florida

Six Views of a Greek Village Everyday is not a Feast Day (1980, color, 110 minutes; video sale, $150) Thread of the Needle (1982, color, 22 minutes; video sale, $50) Let's Get Married! (1985, color, 35 minutes; video sale, $60) My Family and Me (1986, color, 65 minutes; video sale, $100) A Hard Life (1988, color, 55 minutes; video sale, $90) Charcoal‐Makers (1990, color, 30 minutes; video sale, $55) Filmmaker‐anthropologist: Colette Piault. All films available in 16mm, 1/2‐in. video. Distributed by Les Films du Quotidien, 5 rue des Saints‐Pères, 75006 Paris, France. Tel: 1–42 60 25 76; fax: 1–42 61 67 92); or Dr. Peter Allen, 98 Transit Street, Providence, R.I. 02906 (Tel: 401/274–2397; fax: 401/456–8379).

The Nehru Dynasty Life and Death of a Dynasty Produced by Anne and Robert Drew; narrated by Cliff Robertson. 1991, 90 minutes, color and black‐and‐white, 1/2” videotape, narration in English. Distributor: Direct Cinema Limited, P.O. Box 10003, Santa Monica, CA, 90410. Tel: (800)525–0000; Fax: (313)396–3233. Institutional sale, $195.00; rental $85.00.     

European and Mediterranean Studies, an Overview

Social Change in a Peripheral Society: The Creation of a Balkan Colony . Daniel Chirot. Studies in Social Discontinuity
People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology . J. Davis.
Catholics and Protestants: Agricultural Modernization in Two German Villages . Gunter Golde.
Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800 . Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk , and E. P. Thompson.
The One Blood: Kinship and Class in an Irish Village . Elliott Leyton.
Mediterranean Family Structures . J. G. Peristiany. Studies in Social Anthropology, 13
Kinship and Modernization in Mediterranean Society . J. G. Peristiany.
The Fate of Shechem: Or the Politics of Sex . Julian Pitt-Rivers.
East European Peasantries: Social Relations: An Annotated Bibliography of Periodical Articles . Irwin T. Sanders and Walter C. Bisselle
Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicily . Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider. Studies in Social Discontinuity
Three Bells of Civilization: The Life of an Italian Hill Town . Sydel Silverman.
Peasant Wisdom: Cultural Adaptation in a Swiss Village . Daniela Weinberg.     

In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports

In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports. 1995 46 minutes, color. film by Jay Rosenstein. For more information contact New Day Films. 22D Hollywood Ave., Ho-Ho-Kus. NJ 07423, (888) 367-9154.